


The Adoration of the Earth

by iberiandoctor (Jehane)



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: A Magic Book Made Them Do It, Dramatic Confession of Feelings, Forced to Confess Sexual Fantasies to Desired Partner, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Older Virgin/Younger Experienced Partner, Other, Protagonists in Peril, Sex Pollen, Sex Pollen in the Darkness, plant tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:27:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: One should never flirt with odd books at Solstice-time in Faerie, as Mr Strange learns to his great chagrin.
Relationships: Gilbert Norrell/Jonathan Strange, referenced Arabella Strange/Jonathan Strange
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	The Adoration of the Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwelveLeagues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwelveLeagues/gifts).



When all was said and done, the responsibility for the alteration in tenor of their once-polite relationship lay with Strange and Strange alone. Mr Norrell was certain of it. After all, he had given Strange fair warning of performing magic concerning Visitations _[1]_ during this particular season. 

The season in question was the mid-point between the Spring equinox and the Summer solstice, as far as these passages could be measured in the Darkness, several months after the Restoration of English Magic and the disappearance of the only, and thus necessarily foremost, magicians of the Age.

Both Strange and Norrell had been taken aback by the sudden proliferation of a number of spell-books never before seen in the Hurtfew Library.

“Dashed odd thing,” Strange had muttered, when the new books had been corralled in the corner of the Library and fenced in with fennel-seed and Bartelby’s Fortifications. “Martin Pale mentions a spontaneous manifestation of dragons at Solstice-time in Faerie, and the occasional eruption of goat-men in the altogether! But he said nothing whatsoever about an incubation of books.” 

Mr Norrell had been busy cataloguing the new visitors. There were eight in all, a suspiciously propitious number. 

“ _A Compendium Maleficarum on the Arrivals of Nocturnal Creatures. Strange Soujourners: the Customs and Usages of the Bed-chamber in the 18th Century._ I will see if any of these volumes are mentioned in Horace Worblehat’s _Catalogous Brittanica_ ,” he remarked, although he was fairly certain they were not. 

“They do refer to nocturnal Visitations of some sort or other,” mused Strange, picking up the topmost volume, hand-stitched in the raised cord fashion that hailed from the last century, and bound, according to the European convention, in innocuous, tooled pig-skin. “Consider _The Mustering-from-Afar of the Count's Carpathian Ladies_ _[2]_. Perchance they might be germane to our present conditions?” 

Mr Norrell took the book away before Strange could peruse it further. The thought of his companion in the Darkness being set upon by a mustering of foreigners from even a short distance away was immensely perturbing, for reasons which he could not instantly name but were likely to be unassailable. 

“Mr Strange! We know nothing of these spell-books, or why they have arrived during this unseemly season. Please be so kind as to refrain from examining them further until we have devised an appropriate plan of investigation.”

“Set your mind at ease, Mr Norrell,” Strange said, grinning, as Norrell restored the book to the protective ring of fennel. “I would not dream of departing this place without consulting you.”

Mr Norrell found himself flushing at this flippant sally. Given that he had been abandoned by his former pupil on more than one previous occasion, and most egregiously, he felt justified in the doubts he now harboured. He was aware that Strange was much more determined than he was to escape from the Darkness — no doubt fixated upon returning to Mrs Strange, and to the Further Great Work to be done for England, although it should also be said that the latter concern, at least, weighed as heavily upon Norrell himself. 

Still, over the course of these months in the Darkness, they had settled into an almost cozy routine, carrying on a study of the place in which they had found themselves, for the purposes of scholarship as well as flight, and engaging in such household domesticities which two gentlemen living under the same roof were compelled to do for themselves. 

Mr Norrell had hoped his colleague did not find this routine to be overly unpleasant. Truth be told, now that he had quite recovered from their previous ordeals, he found it, somewhat guiltily, to his own tastes. He had sorely missed Strange's company when deprived of it by the war and the subsequent period of estrangement; now that he had Strange's undivided attention without fear of interruption by the likes of Sir Walter Pole or the British War Cabinet or wider London society, he found he was rather enjoying himself. 

Measures of escape aside, Norrell half-expected curiosity to eventually get the better of Strange. However, he had anticipated at least a week’s worth of invigorating debate over whether the new magic books were too dangerous, or too disreputable, to risk employing, before Strange decided to cross that particular Rubicon and insist on having his way. Over their months in the Darkness, Norrell had discovered he no longer minded losing his arguments with Strange, perhaps because he preferred being contradicted to being deprived of Strange’s company.

He had not expected matters to come to a head so soon.

After reaching their consensus on the matter of the eight peculiar books, some _ad hoc_ examination thereof, and supper comprizing bread and cheese and soft-boiled eggs, Mr Norrell went to bed, and dreamt of a collection of scantily-clad ladies far more terrifying than any conjuring of John Uskglass. 

In his dream, these females had beset a gentleman — who bore a more than passing resemblance to his own Jonathan Strange — for the sole purpose of despoiling him. (This was not to say that Mr Norrell had ever had any personal experience with despoilment in all of his fifty-two years; before his descent into the Darkness at Strange’s side, he would have counted this state to be a Blessing. But he was certainly able to recognize despoiling when he encountered it.)

He woke all of a sweat, whereupon he heard the most fearful racket coming from below.

The Library-books were screaming, and so was Strange.

For once heedless of his own safety, Mr Norrell snatched himself out of bed, secured his dressing-gown about his person, and rushed downstairs. 

The door of the Hurtfrew Library was ajar. The fennel-seed barrier around the eight books had vanished. In its place stood a vast, writhing Forest, comprized of prehensile tendrils and flowering vines and whip-sharp branches, all of which were mounting a many-limb’d attack upon Jonathan Strange.

Strange had been knocked to the ground. The vine-tentacles encircled his calves and launched salvos about his head; they had plucked his cravat off his neck and made short work of his banyan and waistcoat and covered the remnants of his clothes with a thick, viscous liquid of ghastly hue. He was fending the vines off with the poker from the fire-place. In his other hand, he held one of the offending books, whose vellum cover proclaimed, in large gilt lettering, the title _The Garden of Earthly Delights_.

Strange craned his neck about as Mr Norrell stept through the suddenly fecund threshold. His besmirched face lit up with an exceedingly gratifying expression of relief. 

“Oh! Mr Norrell — these vines may be _Drosera glanduligera_ , they seem carnivorous! — I cannot get free — “

“I am not insensible to your plight,” Mr Norrell said, reproachfully. Strange had obviously crept into the Library to address the vexed Question of the peculiar books without his, Norrell’s accompanying presence; he must own to be the author of this particular misfortune.

Still, given that Strange was even now gripped in the throes of a most ferocious battle for his life, and even more importantly for the sanctity of the Hurtfrew Library, Mr Norrell suppozed that it would be churlish of him to ascribe blame without first making a good faith attempt at rescue.

“If you can continue to hold the Forest off, I will attempt a counter-spell,” he said, and, side-stepping the attacking tendrils, gingerly crossed to the far corner to slide _Pritchard’s Treatise on Conflagrations_ from its place on the bottom-most shelf. According to Martin Pale, the flora in Faerie was generally susceptible to fire.

“Mr Norrell — if you would hurry —“

Norrell turned about, and was met with a fearsome sight. The vines had stripped away the rest of Strange’s clothing and succeeded in winding themselves completely around his chest and throat and outstretched arms, holding him prisoner in a restless, slime-covered, writhing mass of bilious-green. A large scarlet Hibiscus-flower had sprouted very near to his sweating face, and, as Norrell gazed on in horror, it almost teazingly stuck a frilly stamen into Strange’s ear. 

“Help is on the way, Mr Strange,” he said, in what he hoped were reassuring tones, and let fly with the spell.

The bolt of Asmodeus-fire struck as a flaming arrow into the primordial heart of the Forest. The vines thrashed back and forth, shrieking, and the Hibiscus-flower reared back and expelled a counter-attack of its own.

Twinkling spores scattered themselves about Mr Norrell, showering upon his skin and clothes and the insides of his nostrils. He was flung backwards, and eventually fetched up all of a daze beside the furthest bookshelf. 

He blinked, swallowing involuntarily. The pollen tasted faintly of sandal-wood, or rather as how he imagined sandal-wood would taste, tho’ he had never tasted it before. 

“Oh! God,” Strange muttered. There was a thud as he fainted dead away.

Mr Norrell frowned. Clearly the blaze had only been partly efficacious against this carnivorous Forest, and the amount of fire required to do greater damage would likely pose an unacceptable risk to the books themselves. Perhaps a different approach might be required. If the Forest had been accidentally summoned by magic during this present fecund Solstice-season, it might be banished instead.

Fortuitously, he discovered he had _Perren & Ferrakis_ right beside his head. 

As the tendrils dived yet again, grasping him by the shoulders of his dressing-gown, Mr Norrell plucked up the relevant volume, _I Declare Survival_ _[3]_ , and commenced the complex banishment ritual. 

_…Depart, forthwith, through the portal from whence you came/For you are not welcome from this time forward…_

In the first instance, the spell appeared to have little effect. The menacing vines continued to grasp him, winding their determined way up his ankles and knees and then the fork between his thighs. A good Christian man was always attired appropriately even when dressing for bed, but Mr Norrell soon discovered that decent Lancashire cotton was no barrier for these tendrils, which leaked a most un-Christianly fluid and sought out the most private Areas where no unmarried man ought to be broached, let alone one who was the foremost magician of the Age.

Instead of containing Earthly Delights, this was a Garden of Unearthly Appetites.

The sensation of being ravished by sentient vines was horrific, and even more horrifically delicious. Mr Norrell had never before considered why people referred (often in hushed tones) to the Temptations of the Flesh, but owing to the sultry warmth sliding enticingly between the cheeks of his rear end, he now believed he might at last have some inkling. 

With some effort, Mr Norrell wrestled his attention from the tendrils’ depredations to the battle at hand.

 _I entreat you, begone!/You who were the destroyer/I declare, I declare survival_

The Forest hesitated, and Mr Norrell wondered whether he had misapprehended the situation and placed not only himself but also his companion in further peril. Then the morass of vines shivered all over, and released him as well as Strange in convulsive, undulating movements. There was a small explosion, like a miniature expostulation of cannon-fire, and then all remnants of the Forest vanished post-haste.

Mr Norrell, panting and clutching the slender volume of _Perren & Ferrakis_, found himself in victorious possession of the battle-ground. His dressing gown had been consigned to the Nether-world, his night-dress was askew, and the disturbing remnants of the vines’ sap could still be felt within and without his own Nether regions, but all in all, this was a successful night’s work.

Such self-satisfied thoughts were rudely interrupted by a fever that swelled, in an unnatural prickly-heat, across his breast. It spread gradually at first and then faster until it had taken possession of his entire person. The hairs on his arms arose, the hairs on his head arose also, and, to his horror, so did certain other of his Extremities.

Mr Norrell set the book down on the nearest table, his heart fluttering wildly. He was hardly young or of robust constitution. What if the Forest's insidious slime contained a deadly Poison, the fore-runner of which was this present state of fiendish arousal? What if he were to perish without medical attention, marooning his companion in the Darkness forever?

Said companion chose that moment to let loose a piteous groan, and Mr Norrell’s thoughts were abruptly, shame-facedly diverted. He hurried over to Strange’s side.

Strange had not fully recovered from his swoon. His long body, now cruelly stripped almost bare, reclined limply along the floor-boards. Through the tatters of clothing, his limbs gleamed faintly with perspiration and the lethiferous sap of the rapacious Forest. The uncovered parabola of his rib-cage, the knobs which comprized his rail-thin sternum, the light dusting of freckles upon the surface of his skin, all these were as delights of an unfamiliar country to which Mr Norrell had suddenly and involuntarily been transported.

Mr Norrell blushed, for he was staring at Strange in the altogether. Sternly, he took hold of himself. He was the foremost magician of the Age, and moreover, he had just rescued Strange from the fate intended by the vine-tentacles (which, according to the common knowledge regarding otherworldly tentacles, would most likely have been a fate worse than Death). It would not do for him to succumb to the Poison himself, or to flush like a schoolboy over Strange’s denuded state, regardless of how pale and freckled it was.

Strange groaned again, and then said, in half-delirious tones, “Help me, Gilbert.”

“There, Mr Strange, I have you.” With some effort, Norrell set aside his own discomfiture and put his arm cautiously behind Strange’s head. 

Strange’s skin was deathly hot to the touch. Ordinarily Mr Norrell would very much rather not have touched any part of any one’s body, even if that body happened to belong to his one-time pupil, but under these dire circumstances, he felt obliged to give the nearest part thereof (which happened to be Strange’s bare shoulder) a careful pat.

Perhaps Strange would find the sound of his Christian name more comforting, especially since he seemed to have taken it upon himself to use Norrell’s own, at least in the privacy of his dreams? “ _Jonathan_. You are safe now. The Forest has been vanquish’d. That is to say, I have vanquish’d it.” Mr Norrell paused as he considered how this sounded, tho’ he did consider that, under the most recent circumstances, a certain degree of self-congratulation might be excusable.

Strange’s eyes flickered open. Mr Norrell had never previously had the opportunity to observe their colour, but he discovered now that they were a particularly compelling blue-grey.

“Gilbert — Mr Norrell — I feel so extremely wretched —“

Strange’s unruly curls felt damp, either from perspiration or the juices of ravishment; Norrell took the calculated risk of petting them cautiously. 

“You are afflicted by a Poison of some kind. ‘Twas concealed within the Forest's secretions. While you were battling it, you took a very large dose.” 

Strange put a trembling hand to his head. “It is as if my loins are all a-fire,” he muttered, “in a way that cannot be quench’d, save … save by …”

They both directed their attentions southward, to Strange’s aforementioned loins, which were, as previously noted, now unhindered by much, or indeed any, clothing whatsoever.

“… Save by intimate relations,” whispered Strange; it was his turn to flush. Norrell drew his gaze away from the swollen purple-red of Strange’s intimate implement to observe that the tips of Strange’s ears had turned bright pink.

The sensual proof was now inescapable: the Earthly Delights promised by the fiendish Garden were instead Earthly Torments. Equally inescapable was the fact that Norrell found his own implement, fortunately concealed under his torn night-dress, now in a similar state of swollen arousal. 

“Good God, there must be a way to reverse this,” Norrell said, with a firmness he did not feel (in his heart at least, if not in another less metaphorical respect). Clambering to his feet, clutching his night-dress about his legs to ensure his own compromized condition was hidden from Strange, he staggered over to the bookshelves.

 _Putnam’s Compendium on Various Hex Inversals_ proved to be useless, as was _Southwarden’s Mirror-tricks_. _Mrs Bex-Utterly on Snares Unfastened_ — no, no. Reluctantly, Norrell took up _Fairy-Sex Magick in the Late 14th Century_ , and began, rapidly, to read. 

Oh. Oh, _no_. Surely there must be some other way. 

“Mr Norrell? Sir? You have gone quite pale,” Strange said, after a lengthy interval.

Norrell glanced up to find Strange propt effortfully upon the table beside him. He was shivering with fever, and clutching a pillow from the sopha before him as a shield for his modesty. The flush that had stained his cheeks seemed to have spread across his chest like a not-unattractive rash. Such was the fiendish influence of the most fiendish Garden that the sight was inviting, and Norrell found himself shivering in his turn.

“Mr Norrell. What does it say?”

Mr Norrell replied, reluctantly, “Why — that the particular nature of the rapacious attack must owe itself to this fecund Season of increazing fertility. For when summoned in Faerie at the midst of the Solstice, the Garden of Earthly Delights shall manifest in this sensual and avaricious manner.”

"And what of the remedy for the Garden’s Poison?"

"The writer doesn't specify one," Norrell hedged. He started to back away, but Strange was now skilled at addressing Norrell's habitual prevarications; letting the pillow fall, he snatched the book from Norrell with both hands. Standing stark-naked, he began to read.

"Mr Strange!" Norrell found himself flushing again, across both the uncovered and the still fortunately-covered aspects of his person. “I did warn you that the season was dangerous, and that you were not to approach the new books without me! This impossible quandary has come about in consequence of your actions!”

“There does appear to be one remedy,” Strange said, in an unusually small voice. It was the only small part of him at present. Looming over Norrell, the rest of his body, including that part no longer hidden by the pillow, seemed larger than before.

Norrell found himself sorely hoist upon the horns of dilemma, together with other horns he could not politely name. Even if this remedy was something that he might desire — _especially_ if it were the one thing he might desire — it was unthinkable that he should be compelled to — and that Strange would also be —

— _Well._ Someone had to make a decision, and clearly, he was the far better qualified of the two. 

Resolutely, he took the book from Strange's nerveless hands and slammed it shut on the table. 

“Mr Strange, there may be nothing else for it. You will just have to be brave. We both will have to be,” he added, tho’ he could not imagine how they could go about this particular act of fairy-magic that would loosen the Garden’s snare, even at their most courageous. 

A large, warm hand caught about his wrist, and Norrell almost swallowed his tongue. He looked up into Strange’s fevered eyes.

“Oh! Thank God, Gilbert. I am in such extremity,” Strange announced, and took Norrell into his arms and latched his red mouth upon Norrell’s own.

As previously mentioned, Norrell was wholly innocent of even this act that was merely preparatory to that of the coitus proper. He was perturbed to discover in that instant that all his thoughts had rousted themselves from his head like unreliable pigeons and taken flight. It was almost as if someone else were surrendering their lips and permitting the invasion of another person’s tongue, and indeed sucking on it as if upon a boiled sweet. Save that he could feel every inch of his prickling-hot skin as it was pressed against Strange’s, and he knew that these hitherto unfamiliar happenstances must in fact be occurring to Gilbert Norrell after all.

“If only you knew,” Strange was muttering between kisses, “that I have desired this for so very long…”

Norrell allowed several moments for these incomprehensible words to re-order themselves into a more intelligible pattern. Then, still none the wiser, and thanks to Strange’s continued embraces, more addled than ever, he managed to stammer out, _“…What?”_

“I used to believe it was just the magic stirring me up,” Strange confessed; he pulled away for a moment and Norrell used the interval in a vain attempt to catch his breath. “When you performed magic during our lessons, when you would expound upon it, I used to dream about kissing you exactly in this fashion.”

“You believed yourself drawn to me because of the magic?” Mr Norrell was astonished. And yet, surely the jolt of ardent longing which he had himself experienced that first time he had seen Strange perform magic, and every spell thereafter, could only be attributed to that very source.

“Oh, I did! It was immensely frustrating, Arabella used to teaze me tremendously about it.”

“Mrs Strange was aware of your proclivities…?” Mr Norrell made a further valiant attempt at comprehension, even as Strange pushed his night-dress from his shoulders and pressed kisses to his throat. “Mr Strange — Jonathan — do you mean to say the prospect of our copulation would not be disagreeable to you? After all, you are a married man…! I would never have imagined …”

Strange paused in his ministrations, his hair more disordered than ever. “Oh — Arabella said she didn’t mind, not if this was what serving English Magic required,” he said. “But you, sir, you never said as much as a word, not even now, stranded as we are in the Darkness, and I thought I must not meet your fancy? And indeed I would never have spoken, save for…”

Here he made an expansive gesticulation that encompassed both Norrell’s person and his own. Norrell followed the gesture, and realized that his own modest protuberance was tenting wantonly under the front of his night-dress, and had wetted the cotton through.

Norrell flushed yet again. There was hardly any where to hide his face, nor was there any means of concealing his treacherous arousal from his old pupil.

Strange would, however, not be hidden from. He took hold of Norrell's shoulders and peered almost fearfully into Norrell's eyes. 

“Mr Norrell — forgive me; I am not usually so unconfident of my talents — but you _don’t_ mind, do you? I would not wish you to agree solely to remedy this wretched fairy-magic.”

Strange looked miserable with desire, his pinched expression that of a man seized by a bad case of the colic, and yet Mr Norrell had never felt more fond of him. 

Until now, he had always presumed Strange entirely indifferent to the allure of magic and to Norrell himself. To learn instead that this former pupil and then sworn adversary and now most reluctant companion had esteemed him for years? It made Norrell’s heart beat faster, even discounting the influence of fairy-magic. 

He took Strange’s hands in his own, anchoring them both in the centre of their power, even as the Poison's itching, crawling heat clamoured within their veins.

“No. No, Jonathan, I do not mind. Only, I have not been married before, so you shall have to shew me how to go about matters.”

“Oh!” Strange exclaimed, and he kissed Mr Norrell’s palms and then his face with a most touching enthusiasm. “Certainly I did hope that I might be your first! And that I might be permitted to shew you — you shall not regret this, sir, I assure you.”

“Yes, I expect you to see that I do not,” Norrell remarked, rather out of breath, as he allowed Strange to tumble them both onto the sopha. 

Once settled there, Strange slid his arms under Mr Norrell’s sodden night-gown and fastened his hands about Norrell’s bare flanks. Norrell flinched from the unexpected heat — Strange’s fingers were striking tinder-sparks everywhere that they touched him — but also because he recollected that the Forest’s thick, odiferous sap was still spread across his own Nether regions.

Strange made a stifled, hungry sound. “What luck! My dear sir, I believe you are entirely sodden.”

“It was the Forest,” Norrell avowed, flustered, as Strange continued his investigations under the night-dress, with his fingers as well as — oh, God! — with his lips. 

The sensation was most enjoyable; so enjoyable Mr Norrell was rather afraid he might die of it. Words and spells tumbled out of him as if he stood within the heart of English Magic, and the great miracle was that his condition could not be attributed to magic at all.

“If you would be so kind as to turn over,” Strange mumbled from somewhere beneath Norrell’s night-dress. 

Norrell sat up, heart pounding with an admixture of affront and eagerness. “What? Why ever for?” 

Strange emerged from below the garment, his hair standing on end, colour high on his cheekbones, his mouth covered with Norrell’s own juices. Almost shyly, he admitted, “Because I have a dear wish to bugger you, sir, if you’ll allow me.”

Certainly, this was the particular act of congress that had been explicitly prescribed by _Fairy-Sex Magick in the Late 14th Century_ , an act which had hitherto been unknown to Mr Norrell, who was not the kind of man to read racy pulp-novels containing descriptions of lewdness. But to hear the practice vouchsafed in such fervent tones by his colleague did much to strengthen his resolve.

“I may allow it, provided it be as pleasant as this other act which you have just — oh!” For Mr Strange had caught him around the waist, turned him face-down upon the sopha, lifted the tail of his garment, and sought out the entrance hidden between the shy cheeks of his posterior, which would have been virgin territory if not for the questing plant-tendril of the sentient Forest.

Mr Norrell loosed an embarrassing, high-pitched sound, fortunately muffled by the thick broacade of the sopha. Strange urged kisses between Norrell’s shoulder-blades as he slid what felt to be thumb and fore-finger into Norrell’s body. 

“It is also the first time for me,” Strange murmured into Norrell’s ear. “Arabella would never … I have only ever imagined taking this particular licence with you, Gilbert.”

“I have never imagined it at all,” Mr Norrell admitted, panting and wriggling under Strange’s charming explorations, “but, do you know, I find I like it well enough.”

“I’m gratified to see it,” Strange said, his own voice rather breathless. “I had never thought you might, but I am humbled all the same.”

He continued to press his suit, and in the by-and-by, he withdrew his fingers and rested himself heatedly athwart Mr Norrell’s backside, and Norrell’s own poor, engorged hardness could not help but twitch against the cushions in response. 

Strange continued, in half-strangled tones, “I think I must have you now, sir, if I may. I am nearly sick with it, and for your own self as well as the fairy-magic. Please say that we might make the attempt.”

“Come along, then,” Norrell said, screwing his courage most decidedly to this particular sticking-place, and, as Strange girded his weapon, Norrell raised himself up on his forearms and readied himself to be conquered.

The pathway had been prepared, as if for a festival-day with garlands and the lubrication of much fine wine _[4]_ , by the Garden. Strange’s fervent cock-stand found no impediment at the gate, the intended passage having unlocked itself for him as if by the hand of the Raven King.

If the rest of Strange was feverish-hot, Strange’s prick felt somehow even hotter as it sank its way home. Pritchard’s Conflagration could not have burned with greater ferocity: a blaze that was akin to being pierced by Asmodeus-fire.

Finally Strange was wholly engaged within. The stifling closeness of the fairy-magic was now fully about them, their blood and breath thick with the Garden's malign heat. The remedy to the Garden’s carnal affliction crackled over them like wildling-fire; through this conjoining of their physical bodies and the fierce coition of their powers, Norrell could feel every palpitation of Strange’s heart.

Strange pressed his face into the nape of Norrell’s neck, gasping out a string of nonsense-words as he took him slowly and then much less slowly. In short order, he had quite forgotten himself, and his thrusts became more and more forceful. Norrell held on for dear life, thinking this must be how it felt to be being ridden by a war general. He felt a moment of envy toward the mare which Strange had infamously ridden into battle at the Duke of Wellington’s side, and then —as Strange urged his hips forward savagely again — he thanked his more generous stars that he had never gone for days at a stretch with Strange in the saddle.

Presently, Strange’s breaths grew shallower and faster, and he began to sound as if he was reaching the very edges of himself. “How indecent you look,” he panted into Norrell’s ear, “and how capital this feels! If it felt half as splendid for you, Gilbert, even half — why, I should —“ 

He released his death-grip on Norrell’s haunches and reached around to grasp Norrell’s neglected prick. The unfamiliar sensation of another man’s hand upon Norrell's member was somehow even more debauched than the sensation of that same man buried furiously to the hilt inside him, and it was shockingly, astonishingly good. Norrell had never dreamt that such an earthy, lewd, animal manner of copulation could be _good_ , but for once he was not sorry to be proven wrong. 

As Strange worked him over harder and harder, and their combined powers strove fiercely together, the climactic moment drew nearer until it was finally at hand. 

“I believe the spell is working,” Norrell opened his mouth to remark, but instead he found himself making a small muffled high-pitched noise, and —oh! _God!_ — he abruptly spent himself against the sopha-cushions. 

“My dear sir,” Strange sighed, as he, too, finished in a paroxysm of relief.

They both felt the instant when the fairy-magic lifted from them, the obscene, crushing weight dissolving in the same way as gathering grey clouds are driven away by the glad advent of the Sun.

It was over at last. The Library was silent. Order had been restored to Hurtfrew Abbey as it lingered in the Darkness on the edges of Faerie. 

Strange exhaled noisily and let his body go slack. Norrell found himself quite crushed under the dead-weight, a fact which he did not stint to point out, muffled as he was against the sopha.

“Oh! Forgive me,” Strange exclaimed contritely, withdrawing from him and scrambling off at once. No sooner had Norrell sighed in relief, than he found his companion lifting him up onto the sopha and climbing alongside. 

Half of the sopha’s fabric was sopping-wet from their congress. Mr Norrell wondered if Mansfield’s Word of Draining would be efficacious against the stain.

“Well, this was, by and large, a success,” he remarked, after a while.

Strange pressed insistently against Norrell as if he sought to burrow under Norrell's arm; Norrell was obliged to put that arm around him to avoid being tipped off the sopha. 

“To have so thoroughly deflowered the most famous virgin of the Age? ‘Twas a rousing success!” Strange smirked at him. “In fact, sir, I believe another round might be in order!”

Norrell tried to sit up in concern, but Strange slid his own arm around Norrell's waist and held him fast. “Mr Strange, you do not seem quite yourself. Are you certain you no longer feel the effects of the Poison?

“Oh, yes. I am no longer addle-headed.” Strange put his large nose against Norrell’s cheek, and to his surprize Norrell allowed him to do so. “Let me take this opportunity to finally express my most ardent feelings towards you.”

Norrell made a scoffing sound, tho’ it was not easy to do so with an armful of a Jonathan Strange who had commenced embracing him once more. “Sir, these are the words of a man still sorely gript by fairy-magic!”

Strange grinned his lopsided half-grin. “Perhaps you are right, Mr Norrell,” he drawled. “I might still be under the influence of that insidious Poison and not know it. If you love me at all, you may stay at my side and valiantly see to it that I am properly shriven of my ailment.” 

So saying, Strange rested his head upon Norrell’s shoulder, and stared up at him so hopefully that Norrell could not help but yield him a reluctant smile. 

Perhaps Strange was right. It had always been his responsibility to rescue Strange from himself, and, as Strange reached up to kiss him once again, Norrell suppozed this task might not prove to be much of a hardship.

  
  
  


_Footnotes:_

_[1]_ : Mr Norrell uses this term in the manner employed by _Fforde-Stroud’s Magico-Legal Dictionary_ (3rd Ed.) to reference magickal journeying via the King’s Roads, that vast and interconnecting system of roads and bridges as depicted by Messrs. Minervois and Forcalquier.   
This iteration of the definition was first coined by Dr Geoffrey Absalom, the lesser-known younger brother of Gregory, 16th century court magician to King Henry VIII and to Queens Mary and Elizabeth, in 1547. It is not to be confused with more colloquial usage that encompasses “visitations” by loved ones after they had “Cross’d Over to the Other Side”.

_[2]_ : It is a settled truism, and one which holds unswervingly across all the mirror-worlds beyond this one, that visitations by unseasonally-dressed, only potentially sanguinarian, females are universally welcomed by most masculine spaces. Even ordinarily risk-averse men are not immune.  
By way of illustration, as described in his _Collected Correspondence with John Segundus_ Mr Strange, in June 1816, encountered the notorious English poet Lord Byron and the writers Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley, and a young lady who called herself Mrs Clairmont, in Geneva, Swisserland. These persons enquired of Strange his experience with _vampyres_ , to wit: bloodless creatures of the night who preyed upon the living in order to consume their blood. Mr Strange took the expected affront at the notion that magicians would be at all familiar with such disreputable and salacious black magicks. But had he been informed that the vampyres in question might not be predatory blood-sucking gentlemen but scantily-clad voluptuous ladies, as the Carpathian damsels presented here, his reaction to Lord Byron's enquiries might have been vastly different.  
In order to gain access to any dwelling in any world, including this one, vampyric females require consent, freely given. More often than not, thanks to the worlds' proliferation of still-young men hampered by their tempers and a lack of wit, they are successful.

_[3]_ : A sensitive spell that pertained to its creator’s articulation of personal strength following an initially devastating banishment.   
Written, as is noted here, by reputable duo of magician-academics Messrs. Perren & Ferrakis, this spell would subsequently be turned into [a popular song](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Will_Survive) that received heavy airplay in the year of 1978, reaching Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the UK Singles Chart on consecutive weeks. The song was frequently recalled as a symbol of human empowerment and was deemed by the Crown as "culturally, historically, or artistically significant".

_[4]_ : Unexpected as this might sound to the casual Reader, the span of English History had in fact known several festival-days that were celebrated by congress with otherworldly Creatures. To wit:  
\-- In the turbulent times of Iron Age Britain immediately prior to the advent of Roman rule in the fifth century before Christ, historian Claudius Ptolemy (c. AD 100 – c. 170) described the shortly-thereafter-discontinued ancient Caledonii ritual of _Cétshamhain_ , celebrating the first day of summer. The ritual involved the surrendering-up of the tribes’ most beautiful young men and young maidens to ceremonial defloration by a god-beast made half of man and half of horse. This being would be summoned by the Caledonii druids from the mountain fastness behind the Beltane bonfires and to which fastness it would be returned once the bloody deed was done.   
\-- During the reign of the first Kings of Lancaster, the particular version of the Maying celebrations practised in secret in the county of Carmarthen saw the May Queen being bounded to her beribboned may-pole and held for public use by the thorny birch and mirkwood and sycamore and pease-blossoms more commonly adorning the person of the Green Lady of Lost-Alack. According to Ifor Williams and Thomas Roberts, _Cywyddau Dafydd ap Gwilym a'i Gyfoeswyr_ , (1915, lxix), references to the medieval practice of conjuring this Lady from beyond the veil may be found in the Welsh poem by [Gryffydd ap Adda ap Dafydd](http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net/docs/The%20Literary%20Context.pdf) (fl. 1340-1370) describing such a custom in Llanidloes, in the mid-fourteenth century:  
_After Adam, passionate Lord,_  
_before the Pope’s law or his Trouble,_  
_every one fulfilled his Lust with his Lover_  
_without the law’s or the Church’s Rebuke._  
_So too has May fashioned dwellings from the leaves –_  
_And when the Green Lady comes to bind them:_  
_Are the many trysts at the cantref of Arwystli_  
_for me, the county-folk, and our best-beloved._  
\-- The most latterly of such festivals was celebrated during the period of King George V (born George Frederick Ernest Albert; 1865 – 1936). In Dunwich, England, a village and civil parish on the Suffolk Coast, which in the Anglo-Saxon period was the proud capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles (not to be confused with [fictional town of Dunwich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror) in the New World State of Massachusetts), the villagers celebrated All Saint’s Eve by compelling the first visitor to the province to pass the night at the old port of the disfranchised borough. They would anoint the mouth and the annus-passage of the Chozen One with barley-spirits and the liquors of the unclean. Then they would summon the Great One from the Mountains of Madness beyond the world using the chant _"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"_ ("In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"), and from there that majestic Elder Thing would arise from his sunken home beyond Time and bestow His terrible favours onto the poor wretch whom He did chuse for such dread purpose. On most occasions, save for the Dunwich Incident of 1899, the Chozen One would survive to leave the parish on the next morn, never to remember nor to return. Unsurprizingly, and perhaps unconnected to these un-Christian practices, the parish of Dunwich has been gradually eroding into the sea; a solitary gravestone is all that remains from the graveyard of the last church to fall away into the sea. [ It will soon be submerged and, for the most part, forgotten.](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lost-town-dunwich)

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to Kainosite, who endured a thicket of hyphens and Capital Letters to bring you a much less annoying story ;)
> 
> References:  
> [The Hurfew Chronology](https://hurtfew.mywikis.net/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Revival_of_English_Magic)  
> [A Dictionary of the English Language, By Samuel Johnson, John Walker, Robert S. Jameson (1828 Ed.)](https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=z3kKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP5&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=fals)  
> [Cover to Cover: Exposing the Bookbinder's Ancient Craft (2017)](https://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/special/exhibitions/cover-to-cover/leather/)


End file.
